Reginald Walter Macan, Herodotus, The Seventh, Eighth, & Ninth Books with Introduction and Commentary

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αὐτοῦ ταύτῃ τῇ περ ἔπεσον: generally an especial honour; cp. 1. 30 καί μιν Ἀθηναῖοι δημοσίῃ τε ἔθαψαν αὐτοῦ τῇ περ ἔπεσε καὶ ἐτίμησαν μεγάλως. So too at Marathon: Pausan. 1. 32. 3. But how was it managed at Thermopylai? The body of Leonidas was not buried there at all, but beheaded, impaled, and exposed (cp. c. 238 infra, and note). There were a thousand dead Greeks on view, 8. 25: did the Persians then bury. them? It is not recorded. Stein refers θαφθεῖσι to the funereal monuments (afterwards) erected (cp. ταφῆναι 3. 55, and ἔθαψαν 1. 30); yet he thinks that the Persians buried these corpses. But would the Persians bury? cp. 1. 140. Perhaps some pious though medizing Greeks did so. Those that died in the first two days' engagements would perhaps have been buried by their comrades —so far as the bodies were recovered.

καὶ τοῖσι ... οἴχεσθαι looks like an after-thought, and as such is not even quite grammatically expressed, τελευτήσασι and ἀποπεμφθέντας not referring to the same persons. Perhaps τοὺς ἄλλους might be understood. Cp. App. Crit.

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γράμματα λέγοντα τάδε: a useful illustration of the meaning of λέγειν, λόγος, etc. Cp. c. 220 supra, Introd. § 10. These epitaphs could hardly have been erected until after the victory at Plataiai in 479 B.C. Probably some little time elapsed even after that victory before the obsequies were performed at Thermopylai, and orders given for the erection of monuments and inscriptions. The Pylagoroi (c. 214) may have moved in the matter at the spring meeting of 478 B.C., but perhaps the matter was not determined until 476 B.C. Cp. note to c. 238 infra.

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μυριάσιν ... τέτορες. The first epigram gives the numbers of the combatants: three million on the one side, four thousand on the other. The latter figure includes only the Peloponnesians, agrees with Hdt.'s army-list c. 202 supra, and may be the source of his estimate there. As Thespians, Thebans, Lokrians, Phokians count for nothing, there is an extreme of deficiency in this direction, which is hardly overcome by the supposition that they each had special monuments and inscriptions of their own. This epigram is τοῖσι πᾶσι: but the outsiders are ignored, much as the Athenians were apt to ignore the Plataians, in their account of Marathon (cp. 9. 27). The epigram does not assert that all the 4000 were slain; cp. 8. 25. The ‘three hundred myriads’ constitutes the oldest extant estimate of the land-forces of Xerxes. Taking 300 as a poetic license for 30, or ‘myriads’ for ‘chiliads,’ we have what is on the whole an acceptable figure (though no doubt ideal) for the land-army; cp. Appendix II. § 5. Diodoros 11. 33. 2 in quoting this epigram has διακοσίας, and gives ὲκατὸν μ. as his own estimate, 11. 11. 2. Hdt.'s estimate, c. 185 supra, is somewhatlower than the epigrammatist's. In regard to the form of the epigram: as Πελοποννάσου has survived the scribes we should probably read ποκὰ τᾷδε τριακοσίαις.

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ὦ ξεῖν᾽, ἀγγέλλειν: the poet's second venture is decidedly happier; this sublime distich (ἡ θρυλουμένη ἐπιγραφή) is quoted with variations by Strabo 429 (and others): (1) ὦ ξέν᾽, ἀπάγγειλον and (2) τοῖς κείνων πειθόμενοι νομίμοις. “Longe praestat Herodotea lectio” (Valck.). Cicero, Tusc. 1. 42. 101, translates (from the inferior version) ““dic hospes Spartae, nos te hic vidisse iacentes, dum sanctis patriae legibus obsequimur.””

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Λακεδαιμονίοισι: the word repeated from the epigram=τοῖσι δὲ Σπαρτ<*>ήτῃσι Just before.

τῷ δὲ μάντι: cc. 219, 222 supra. This one diviner has an epitaph as long as οἱ πάντες and οἱ Σπαρτιῆται put together. Whether the previous story is a product of the epigram (κῆρας ἐπερχομένας σάφα εἰδώς=c. 219; <*>ὐκ ἔτλη κτλ.=c. 222), to some extent, is a fair question. Simonides was (as Hdt. expressly asserts) on terms of special friendship with Megistias. To obtain the three epitaphs Hdt. had no more need of visiting Thermopylai than had Cicero.

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Σπερχειὸν ποταμόν gives little or no indication of the exact scene of the diviner's death, although, had we no other evidence, we might suppose that the struggle took place at the West Gate, the nearest to Spercheios: a poetic stream, as canonized by Homer, Il. 16. 174, 23. 142.

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ἔξω ... ἐπίγραμμα: (i.) ἔξω=πλήν, (ii.) the dative τῷ ἐπιγράμματι might be expected after ἐπιγράμμασι. The anacoluthon is designed to avoid the reference of τὸ τοῦ μ. ἐπίγραμμα to σφέας (Stein), but the neuter accusative can here hardly be in direct construction with ἐπικοσμήσαντες. As preposition ἔξω naturally would take a genitive (c. 29 1. 6), but it appears with an accusative (of motion) c. 58. But cp. App. Crit.

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Ἀμφικτύονες. This action of the Pylagoroi may fairly be associated with their proceedings against Epialtes c. 213 supra, and both with the remarkable attempt of Sparta to revive and exploit the Delphian Amphiktyony as a makeweight to the new Delian confederacy; cp. Busolt, Gr. Gesch. iii. 1 pp. 80-88.

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Σιμωνίδης ὁ Λεωπρέπεος. The unsurpassed master of commemorative epigram, and not of epigram only; cp. the citation from his ‘Enkomion’ on the heroes of Thermopylai, Diodor. 11. 11 (=Bergk, Poet. Lyr. iii.4 p. 383). This one chapter of Hdt. contains three authentic epigrams by Simonides (cp. Hauvette, de l'authenticité etc. pp. 43 ff.), although Hdt. does not expressly refer any of them to that author. Simonides was indeed the first and not the least fertile of the historians of ‘the Median war’: besides numerous epitaphs, dedications, and snch like inscriptions, he composed (to order) elegies, encomia, hymns, dirges, etc., as on the battle of Marathon (cp. my Hdt. IV.-VI. ii. 180 ff.) so on Thermopylai, Salamis, Plataiai, which must have helped largely to fix both the sentiment and even the tradition of the facts. Cp. Introduction, § 10; Appendix I.

Simonidesis here given his patronymic: in 5. 102 (ubi vide for reff.) he is described as ‘the Keian,’ or man of Keos. This passage has the appearance of being the earlier composed. Hdt. names Simonides here simply as the friend of Megistias (for ὁ ἐπιγράψας does not necessarily mean that he actually composed the quatrain, cp. 4. 88); there, in his poetical capacity.

Simonides was not an uncommon name (e.g. Thucyd. 4. 7. 1 “Σιμωνίδης Ἀθηναίων στρατηγός”): at least a dozen men are known to have borne it, many of them men of letters. Of the identity of Simonides, son of Leoprepes, with ‘the Keian,’ the most celebrated of all his namesakes (Σιμωνίδῃ γε οὐ ρ̀ᾴδιον ἀπιστεῖν, σοφὸς γὰρ καὶ θεῖος α<*>νήρ, Plato, Rep. 331E), there is no doubt: Mar. Par. 54 Σιμωνίδης ὀ Λεωπρέπους ὁ Κεῖος. His absolute primacy leads to his being frequently mentioned without patronymic or ethnikon, as by Plato, l.c. He was credited with a life of ninety years, 559-469 B.C., Mar. Par. 57. He bore the same name as his grandfather, who was also a poet, ib. 49. The name Leoprepes occurs at Sparta 6. 85, and as that of his father in two epigrams ascribed to Simonides, Bergk, P.L. iii.4 p. 496 (146, 147), one of which M. Hauvette (no. 10 op. c.） regards as genuine.